‘Why is Mommy sending me away’: Residential school survivor reads childhood journal at Saskatoon ceremony

The City of Saskatoon is honouring residential school survivors ahead of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Holding back tears, a residential school survivor shared journal entries written from the perspective of her five-year-old self during a Survivors Flag raising ceremony at Saskatoon’s Civic Square Monday.

April Gamble took the podium, warning the crowd her story “might be hard to hear.”

Gamble is a survivor of the former St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake.

“My sisters came home today. They are always gone. I only see them a few times a year. We fool around at bedtime and Mommy isn’t happy. But I’m excited to have somebody to play with,” she read.

She spoke of leaving her mother, whom she called her “safe place,” when she was taken by bus to a residential school.

“‘Why is Mommy sending me away?’” she read.

“‘Was it because we were fooling around?’”

“Please let me stay. I promise I’ll listen.”

She recalled being placed in a room with more than 20 bunk beds.

“Above me is a girl who cries most of the night, and my sleep is so broken. I wish I was home with Mommy.”

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Her long hair was shaved off, and she was bullied by other children.

She recounted a moment when a group of girls tried to throw her from the top of a fire escape.

“I kick, I scream, the kids laugh. Why is no one helping me? Where are the adults?”

She also spoke about being beaten with a shoe for being late to class.

“I was struck multiple times across my back. The rubber from the shoe burns like fire, and I was sent to bed with perfect shoe prints.”

Gamble became a mother in her teens. Her child later died at age 25.

“Now I bury you. Later, I found out you were drinking and driving, struggling with your own intergenerational trauma and pain.”

She said she also battled addiction and the lasting effects of the residential school system.

“I’m so very sorry for everything that I put you through.”

The Survivors’ Flag was raised after community leaders and residential school survivors spoke. The flag honours survivors and all those affected by the residential school system.